table must be made of fome very particular kind of wood, with which we are utterly unacquainted, if a pound of it make equal resistance to pressure on all fides, with a pound of distilled water; whatever may be the cafe with refpect to a pound of butter, on which we are not aware that any fuch experiments have been made.

Now, whatever refifts univerfal preffure in this way, is faid to be folid; and as all bodies are found to do so, folidity is confidered as one of their primary or effential qualities. Let it be remembered, however, that it is not folidity in the abftract which refifts, but the folid fubftance; juft as it is not power in the abftract, but a powerful Being, from which, as we have feen, Cicero derives all things. Let it be remembered too, that folidity is neither a fenfation nor an idea. When a man grafps in his hand a ftone, he feels refiftance; and, if the flone be not fmooth, fome degree of pain. The refiftance and the pain are each a fenfation; and as, when reflected on afterwards, they figure in the imagination an qalasia, they may be called ideas; but the man being confcious that thofe fenfations were not originally excited by a mere effect of his own, refers them not to fuch an effect alone as their caufe, but likewife to fomething external, which he endeavoured to comprefs, and which is called folid, because it refifted the preffure, and rough, because it excited the pain which he felt.

Many late experiments prove, that the particles of the most folid fubftances with which we are acquainted, are not in actual contact. The fubftitution of the word impenetrability for folidity, therefore, may not appear abfolutely proper, though the author's objections to that fubftitution feem to be of very little value; but the primary atoms of matter muft ftill be conceived as folid, and even impenetrable, to mechanical force. To this notion Mr. D. oppofes two arguments, which, as he feems to confider them as demonftrations, we fhall give in his own words.

"Firft, if there be infinite force, there cannot be infinite refiftance. The force without limit may (muft) meet with no ob facle, and cannot exift with infinite refiftance. If God be omnipotent, matter is not impenetrable. If there be infinite force in any thing, there cannot be refiftance, which may be also infinite, in any thing elfe. Secondly, if there be not infinite force, nothing can prove infinite refiftance. Finite force can only demonftrate (demonftrate only) finite refiftance; for that which has limits, cannot measure that which has none. Man can only apply (apply only) a degree of force to meafure refiftance; and it is only a degree of refiftance which he can prove." P. 61.

All

All this is undoubtedly true; but it is fo obviously foreign from the purpofe, that we are aftonished at meeting with it in the work of a philofopher. Though matter is incompreffible and impenetrable by any force applied by the power of men, who ever fuppofed that it is incompreffible and impenetrable by a force applied by the power of God? As the atoms of every body, gold and platinum not excepted, are unquestionably diftant from each other, it is impoffible to conceive them united in their metallic ftate, but by fome force which muft, by the laws of human thought, be ultimately referred to the power of God. But God, if he should fee fit, might make that union fo much clofer than it is, as to compress the whole matter of the universe within a compafs we know not how narrow; and whoever admits a creation, in the proper sense of the word, muft perceive that were God to alter the volition by which all things exift, the universe itself, minds as well as bodies, would be inftantly annihilated. As long, however, as it fhall please God to continue matter in exiftence, we may fafely pronounce it incompreffible and impenetrable by a mechanical force, or indeed by any force applied by a created being; and if so, we must confider it as jolid in the molt proper fenfe of the

word.

The author next endeavours to prove, that body cannot be extended, and begins his difquifition on that fubject with fome objections to Locke's account of abstract ideas, and to the doctrine of the Peripatetics concerning extenfion. We are not writing an answer to his book, nor a fyftem of metaphyfics, and fhall therefore only fay, that with the Peripatetic notions, we have at prefent no concern; and that without admitting Locke's abftract ideas, it is eafy to conceive the procefs by which we acquire the notion of what is called pure extenfion*. We shall have occafion to give some account of this process by and by, and fhall only obferve now, that the prefent author's experiments against the extenfion of body, derived from what is called the infinite divifibility of matter, are palpable fophifms. He divides the extenfion of real body by the ideal line of the mathematicians, without breadth or thick

* We are not acquainted with any thing on this fubject more worthy of the attention of the metaphyfician, than An Enquiry into the Ideas of Space, Time, Immenfity, and Eternity; by Edmund Law, M. A. who was afterwards Bishop of Carlisle. The Enquiry was published at Cambridge, 1734; and we have not feen a fecond edition of it,

nefs; and because there can be no end to this ideal process, he infers that an inch contains as many feparable parts as a mile, which, implying that a part is equal to the whole, fhows the falfhood and abfurdity of attributing extenfion to material fubftance! But we wonder that it did not occur to Mr. Drummond, that the ideal divifion of the mathematicians produces, by their own account, no feparation of parts; andthat the parts of the fubject on which they operate are conceived as incapable of feparation. The fubject of their infinite divifibility is not matter but pure Space, which fome of them confider as a real thing, and fome only as the imaginary attribute of an imaginary fubftance; but it is by all confidered as immoveable and abfolutely incapable of being divided into feparate parts; and therefore the demonftration of the fourth propofition of the firit book of the Eleinents of Euclid, is by the moft eminent mathematicians confidered as not a legitim te demonftration, because the operation required cannot be performed, the two triangles being abfolutely immoveable. This is not the cafe with refpect to any body, which, however large, must be conceived as moveable, and confifting, as we have already obferved *, of a limited number of primary parts; but whether body, in the philofophical fenfe of the word, really exifts, is a quite different question, of much lefs importance, in our opinion, than feems to be generally fuppofed, as well by thole who deny, as by those who maintain its existence.

The attempt of Mr. D. to prove that extenfion is a fimple mode of duration is, to us, utterly unintelligible; but when he affirms, that the mind cannot contemplate more than one idea at a time, he is palpably mistaken. If this were true, how could ideas be compared with each other, or the shortest procefs of reafoning be carried on? Nay, we will venture to fay, though rather out of place, that no man could have any idea of duration, were not he confcious at once of the tranfient nature of his train of thought, and of the permanence of that which thinks.

The author begins his inquiry into our idea of motion by fneers, rather of a petulant kind, against Ariftotle and the late Lord Monboddo. Thefe, we think, might have been spared; both because the ancient philofopher and his modern interpreter were men of unquestionable merit, and because their detin tion of motion is not furely at all more ridiculous than that of Mr. Drummond. Ariftotle is here represented as

Brit. Crit. for January 1806, page 20.

defining

defining motion, by calling it "a certain energy that is imperfect. This is bad enough, but affuredly it is not worfe than calling motion "Mutation in the combinations of our ideas of extenfion," which is the prefent author's definition! What is mutation? Change! But there is change of place, change of colour, change of intention, &c. &c. As this change or mutation is combined with extention, it is probably change of place that is meant; but can change of place be conceived without previous motion? Motion is rather the act of changing place than abfolute change; and this is probably what Ariftotle meant by calling it a certain energy that is imperfect or incomplete." But the obvious truth is that neither motion, nor reft, nor change, nor white, nor black, nor any other fimple idea is fufceptible of definition; and he who attempts to define fuch ideas, and then reafons from his defnitions, can only fhew, as Bacon obferves, how readily verba gignunt verba. Motion must be perceived in order to be understood; and when it has been perceived, and attentively confidered, there cannot afterwards be any mistake about it.

66

The object of the chapter on motion, is to prove that there can be no fuch thing as the motion of bodies; but we find not one argument that is intelligible in fupport of that paradox, except the Achilles of Zeno the Eclectic, to which the author barely refers, as to an argument that has not yet been anfwered in a fatisfactory manner. Did he then never reid Bayle's elaborate anfwer to it? Did he never hear of the fummation of an infinite feries? or does he not know that Zeno's Achilles may at any time be confuted by one of the fimpleft computations in arithmetic ?

that

From motion, Mr. D. recurs again to extenfion; and fays

"All our ideas of extenfion are obtained from the fenfble images of touch and fight. We confequently always find, that our idea of extenfion is combined with fome other fenfibie qualiti.s. The Bishop of Cloyne has afferted, that extenfion is never perceived, where all fenfible qualities may not be alfo perceived; and he thence argues, that that which is always affociated with ideas of fenfe, muit itself be a fenfation. There is fome inaccuract in this statement, which has been taken advantage of by the acute author of the article of metaphyfics in the Scotch Encyclopædia. Ideas of extenfion may be diftinctly conceived by a man in the dark, who affociates with them no idea of colour. But if Berke. ley had stated, that no idea of extenfion can be conceived, but as exifting with fome other fenfible quality, it would have been less taly to have denied his conclufion. A man in the dark may

pofibly

poffibly conceive an idea of extenfion, without affociating it with colour; but he muft blend it either with hardnefs, or foftnefs, or roughness, or smoothnefs, or with fome other idea of sense.” P. 82.

What is meant by the images of touch and fight, and how ideas can be combined with fenfible qualities, we shall perhaps find fome better opportunity than the prefent to enquire; but we may now obferve, that the author of the article referred to in the Scotch Encyclopædia, poffeffes not that acutenefs which is attributed to him, if he would admit this correction of Berkeley's language, as furnishing any firnifhing any additional fupport to his theory. When Berkeley published his Principles of Human Knowledge, they were only the fecondary qualities of body, that philofophers confidered as Jenfations; and if in this affertion the bifhop meant any thing elle than fecondary qualities, the argument, which he is faid to have drawn from it, takes for granted the very thing to be proved. Mr. D. does not quote the chapter or fection in which Berkeley makes this affertion, and forms this argument; but from the article referred to in the Encyclopædia, it appears that the following is the bishop's argument.

mere

"They who affert that figure, motion, and the reft of the primary or original qualities, do exift without the mind, in unthinking fubftances, do at the fame time acknowledge that colours, founds, heat, cold, and fuch like fecondary qualities, do not, which they tell us, are fenfations exifting in the mind alone, that depend on, and are occafioned by, the different fize, texture, and motion of the minute particles of matter. This they take for an undoubted truth, which they can demonftrate beyond all exception. Now if it be certain that thofe original qualities are infeparably united with the other fenfible qualities, and not, even in thought, capable of being abftracted from them, it plainly follows that they exift only in the mind. But I defire any one

to reflect and fay, whether he can, by any abstraction of thought, conceive the extenfion and motion of a body without all other fenfible qualities. For my own part, I fee evidently that it is not in my power to form an idea of a body extended and moved, but I muft withal give it fome colour, or other fenfible quality which is acknowledged to exift only in the mind."

Here it is evident, that by fenfible qualities, which are acknowledged to exift only in the mind, the bifhop means

* A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, part 1.x.

those